Monday, December 14, 2009

As I believe I mentioned earlier, I've been making it a practice to post my Gospel of Thomas pieces first every morning. It's sort of an Advent Bible Study commitment, but I also do it because they load in easily, since most of those meditations were finished 2 or 3 years ago.

But this morning's meditation -- though I like it -- didn't seem to fit all that well. Which probably means that my understanding of the Thomas passage it goes with has evolved since I last sat with it.

So instead of going to this blog first thing this morning, I found myself writing a new Thomas meditation for Logion 19 -- which I've posted. It was really fun to go back and revisit that process: reading the passage, thinking about what lines jump out at me, searching for the image those lines call to mind, and then seeing what the image has to tell me about the rest of the passage.

As we continue living in this job-free zone (a practice I hope will be broken sometime in the immediate future) I do find myself thinking about what my ideal job would be. If I could do anything in the world, get paid to do what I love, what would it be? I did apply for another job this week -- a writing job, this time -- but I realized this morning that putting together meditations on these Bible verses is what I most love doing; blending photography and writing, adding a dash of spirit...

The combination of reading Lynn Bauman's wonderful translations, being led by the imagery to a photo, to have been led to take the photo in the first place; to have the photo help in my understanding of the whole passage, and then to overflow with words in response AND get to lay it all out for you... Hmm. Just my idea of heaven. I felt particularly blessed this morning, to get to do it once again.

So, as my first year of daily poetry blogging draws to a close -- with somewhat mixed results -- I find myself wondering if I should do that differently next year; if I should add some Biblical intentionality, instead of just letting the poem and photo flow out of what happens here in this blog, which flows out of life and reading and daily meditation.

Hmmm. More to think about.

And, in honor of today's image, which is about layers of reality (sand, water, tree reflected, and tree), here's today's favorite quote from Rohr's The Naked Now:

"Theism believes that there is a God. Christianity believes that God and humanity can coexist in the same place. These are two utterly different proclamations about the nature of the universe. In my experience, most Christians are very good theists who just happen to have named their god Jesus... The result is that we still think of ourselves as mere humans trying desperately to become "spiritual," when the Christian revelation was precisely that you are already spiritual ("in God), and your difficult but necessary task is to learn how to become human."

I particularly love this because it so clearly resonates with the Thomas passage I just finished illustrating, which is about the importance of understanding how rooted we are in that part of us that existed prior to our temporality. Spirituality is not something we need to strive for; it is what IS. What we are striving for is a way to be human while maintaining our awareness of what lies beneath. It's a subtle difference, but once comprehended can result in a huge cognitive shift...

1 comment:

I often find in your poetry a deep sense of spirituality. Perhaps that's not the same as "Biblical intentionality"; I do feel God is with you when you write. The words and the images work as one to make the whole, and the effect can be quite marvelous.

Interestingly (to me), I have been tending to read your Thomas posts before coming here. Today's was just right for what I needed.